Company will have to bid to sell Kit Kats, M&Ms to Wayne County Jail

Apr. 5, 2013

Written by

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Wayne County commissioners unanimously rejected a no-bid contract extension Thursday for a company connected with the corruption probe of county government.

Sheriff Benny Napoleon sought a two-year extension worth $78,692 for United Custom Distribution, part of the Boji Group. The contract was to provide Kit Kats, M&Ms and other candies and snacks to the commissary at the Wayne County Jail, which resells them to inmates.

The Boji Group was one of 14 companies named in grand jury subpoenas in October 2011 as part of a federal probe of corruption in county government. The subpoenas were issued to Wayne County seeking all communications with the Boji Group.

The Boji Group has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

The Wayne County Sheriff's Office proposed a two-year extension, but the public safety committee asked to reduce it to a one-year deal.

"I'd rather see it bid out," Commissioner Ilona Varga, D-Lincoln Park, said at the committee hearing last month.

Suzanne Hall, director of administration for the Sheriff's Office, told the committee at the time: "We don't really care who the vendor is; we just want the product."

The contract, first approved in 2009, went to Motor City Distributors, a St. Clair Shores company that the Boji Group acquired later, according to a county commission analysis. When the contract was proposed again Thursday as a two-year deal, commissioners followed Varga's recommendation and rejected it.

Hall said Thursday that the department hopes to bring back the contract later this month as a one-year deal.

The Boji family, which runs the Boji Group, has been active in county politics for years. Nader Fakhouri, an assistant county executive who served as County Executive Robert Ficano's top political money man before leaving county government last year, is married to the former Janeen Boji.

Her brother, Ron Boji, has hosted Ficano fund-raisers at his West Bloomfield home and contributed to Napoleon.